


The Power Of Love

by Reis_Asher



Series: The World's Greatest Love Songs [4]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Scene, Alternate Universe, Complicated Relationships, Fear of Death, Kissing, M/M, No Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:22:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29583003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reis_Asher/pseuds/Reis_Asher
Summary: Alternate take on theBoat Drinksscene.A sequel toTake My Breath Away.Kerry meets with V on the Seamurai, but changes his mind about smashing up the boat. Instead, he confronts his fears about losing JohnnyandV, and reaches a devastating conclusion about V's intentions going forward...
Relationships: Kerry Eurodyne/Johnny Silverhand, Kerry Eurodyne/V
Series: The World's Greatest Love Songs [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2149056
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	The Power Of Love

**Author's Note:**

> The title refers to "The Power Of Love" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, one of my favorite songs of all time.
> 
> There are no explicit scenes in this part.
> 
> Apologies for my slow updates on fics but I'm having multiple health problems at the moment. Please be patient.

Kerry sat on the boat, strumming Johnny’s guitar. Touching his instrument felt intimate, and he was glad he’d brought this axe instead of the expensive one he wanted to smash to pieces. He couldn’t believe V had given it to him—but then, getting to know him over the last few weeks, he’d started to wonder where Johnny ended and V began. Sure, the guy was a merc and had his own angle on the world, but he felt Johnny every time he was in V’s presence. It made him more open with his fears and insecurities, even though he knew Johnny was watching.

He liked V. It was confusing. If it hadn’t been for Johnny, he would have railed the guy seven ways from Sunday, but it felt cruel to do that given that it was probably the Johnny in him he was attracted to. Bad enough V had let Johnny take his body for a spin with explicit permission to fuck. Their encounter in the dressing room had been something else. Thinking too deeply about it made his head hurt, so he decided to roll with it. The universe was an odd thing, coming full circle in unexpected ways. His guru would probably pluck some meaning out of that. For three thousand eddies a sesh, of course.

Footsteps on the pier made Kerry look up. There was V himself, a soft smile crossing his face as he stepped onto the Seamurai. Ugh, fuck that name. It was a reminder that his manager only signed Kerry because of who he’d been, not who he was becoming.

Who was he becoming? Some mixture of past and present, wiser for the years but young all over again, transported back in time with each touch, each kiss Johnny gave him. Some of the sting was gone from Johnny, too, and Kerry hoped that was sense seeping into him, the fiery, self-destructive passion of his twenties tempered a little by his time spent in undeath.

V sat down beside him, and Kerry realized why he felt so comfortable with the guy. Kinship. They’d both been changed by Johnny, his DNA literally creeping through V’s body and metaphorically changing the course of his life in Kerry’s case. He was there like a ghost, the presence of a man they were perhaps the only ones to truly know.

“Keep playing.” V gestured. He got up and cast off the boat, taking it out to water as Kerry strummed a new track that he was composing. He was afraid to play it knowing Johnny was there. It was slow, steady--not the kind of thing Johnny liked at all. _Easy listenin’ bullshit_ , Johnny would have said. _Music shouldn’t be easy, or it’s just fuckin’ background noise._

“Johnny likes it,” V pointed out.

Kerry chuckled. “Yeah right. Don’t lie for my sake, V. Tell me how he really feels.” Kerry closed his eyes, putting his heart into every pluck. Johnny might hate it, but it was for him. About him. Like every goddamn tune he’d played since his death.

Kerry felt V’s personal link slot into his socket and opened his eyes suddenly to see Johnny resting on the edge of the boat, laying back and looking up at the sunset as he smoked. Kerry felt a wave of calm coming from Johnny, and it was the most unexpected sensation, almost jarring for how alien it was. Johnny was never a man at peace. He’d screamed into a microphone and was still angry at the end of the night, fucking afterwards until he was sated and there was no more energy to burn.

This quiet flame now felt like the warm cracking of a fire in a hearth… Had V changed Johnny as well? Had his influence transformed a raging inferno set on consuming itself into a warm campfire on a summer’s night?

“Don’t stop playin’, Ker. Don’t ever stop.” Johnny’s voice urged him onwards, and he started to sing. V retracted his personal link, sitting back in the seat to listen. Kerry felt the loss of the link, but he understood.

V wanted to experience this as well. He was enjoying himself, and not just through Johnny. Kerry was seducing the pair of them, but he couldn’t hope to hold onto them both.

The music died in his fingers as he thought about losing either one. He put the guitar down on the seat next to him. “Came out here intendin’ to burn this boat to ashes,” he admitted. “This is Kovachek’s boat, that motherfucker.”

“Weren’t you angry about the Us Cracks shit?” V asked. “Seems like a good way to vent some steam, get back at him.”

Kerry nodded. Johnny would have liked it too, no doubt. Chaos and destruction never went out of style. He sighed. “You’re gettin’ worse, aren’t you? You don’t look so good.”

“One way or another this thing’s gonna work its way out soon,” V said. “Don’t worry, Ker. I’ll do what I can for Johnny.”

“You act like I’m not gonna lose either way,” Kerry muttered. “You’re not just a shell for Johnny, V. You’re my friend. You helped me out with Us Cracks and stopped me from makin’ some real bad decisions back there. Coulda used someone like you all these years.”

“You keep hittin’ on me, Johnny’s gonna get jealous.” V cracked a smile, and Kerry could just imagine Johnny’s engram throwing a fit inside. Fucking Johnny. Like he didn’t know he owned Kerry’s entire heart, that his metal hand hadn’t clutched around it from beyond the grave.

“Nothin’ to get jealous about, Johnny. You know that.” Kerry leaned back, breathed out a long sigh. “You’ve always been the one.” He chuckled. “Sorry, V.”

“Nothing to apologize for.” V smirked.

“This whole thing must be awkward for you—me carryin’ on a romance with a dead guy in your head.”

“Nothin’ about this has been not-weird, I can assure you,” V said. “I can’t even take a shit by myself. The peanut gallery is living in the back of my head. Did I ever tell you about the time he tried to kill me?”

“Johnny, you motherfucker!” Kerry gripped the seat cushions to stop himself from grabbing V by the shoulders, as if he could shake Johnny out of him.

“He saved my life, too, so we’re even as far as I’m concerned,” V shrugged. “He was trapped in Arasaka’s soul prison for a long time. I can understand why he wanted out. We’re chooms now, it’s good.”

“Dare I ask what the plan is? Do you even _have_ a plan?” Kerry asked, the yearning chasm in the pit of his stomach growing by the second.

“Got a few. Have a meet with Hanako Arasaka of all fuckin’ people. Beyond that… I’ve got good friends. Panam’s a Nomad and her clan owes me one. She’ll do whatever it takes to help me. We were even able to connect to Alt. Claims she can split Johnny and I into separate engrams.”

“Alt _Cunningham_?” Kerry almost fell off his seat. “Alt’s alive?” Fuck, if Alt was still living, surely Johnny would want to go off after her? Hadn’t she been the love of his life?

“Not as such,” V explained. “She’s an A.I. now, livin’ beyond the Blackwall. If we can connect to Mikoshi, she’ll be able to do it, but afterwards… well, who the hell knows.”

“Geez. I knew she was one hell of a netrunner, but…” Kerry pursed his lips. “Johnny really loved her.”

“He did,” V said. “But she’s not the same person anymore. Not even human. Just data.” There seemed to be something he was keeping quiet about, but Kerry didn't need to pry it out of him. Johnny should have known better even if V didn’t. He was willing to let it lie.

“The same could be said of Johnny,” Kerry replied.

“Trust me, he’s alive and well. I can feel what he feels, and what’s in his heart for you--that’s the real deal. Not that he’d admit it.” V stared off into the middle distance, and Kerry could tell he was arguing with Johnny about something. Kerry chose to stare out at the dying sun. He’d imagined this night quite differently. Something with destruction, flames, and desperate sex. Death and rebirth in the same breath.

But Kerry wasn’t dying. Nor was he being reborn. He was simply picking up where he’d left off, as if he’d been absent these past sixty-some years and not Johnny. That was the thing about loops, wasn’t it? They came back around. Like rollercoasters or roundabouts, ending right back where they started.

Life’s loops. Yeah. Only he had no way if this was the beginning or the end of a loop. Or both. Come this time next week, Johnny might be gone. Or V. Or both of them.

“Enny for your thoughts?” V asked.

Kerry picked up the guitar and started strumming again, trying to find the tune, but it was lost beneath the discordance of potential loss. He stopped playing but kept his grip on the instrument, the only physical piece of Johnny he could hold right now.

“I think… I think it was a great evening and we should head back,” Kerry said.

“You want me to let Johnny out for a while?” V reached into his pocket, emerging with a closed fist. Kerry reached forward and grabbed it before he could raise it to his mouth.

“No. Not tonight. Save that pill. Could be you’re gonna need it in the near future.” Kerry didn’t need the tremble in V’s hand to tell him it was the last one. That time was running short. V pocketed the pill and rested back on the seat, clutching his hand over his heart. “V!”

“I’m… fine…” V managed.

“You’re not fine.”

“No, but I will be soon.” V nodded, as if he’d made some final decision here, tonight, and he feared what that might be. Had he done enough? Said enough? Said and done too much?

Kerry steered the boat back to port, keeping a watchful eye on V as he recovered from his episode. The biochip housing Johnny’s engram was tearing him apart, and the critical hour had arrived.

“It was good seein’ you, choom,” V said. He walked towards the edge of the boat, then paused and turned around. Kerry, following closely behind, found himself face to face with V. V leaned in and kissed him, one brief brush of lips that was over as soon as it began.

“From Johnny. One for the road,” V explained. He walked off the boat before Kerry could say a word, leaving him standing there flabbergasted.

It wasn’t Johnny who had kissed him. Johnny didn’t kiss anything like that. Johnny was all tongues and fire, passion incarnate. This had been sad, somber—almost like a farewell.

“V, _no_ ,” Kerry whispered, but it was too late. V’s motorcycle revved at the end of the pier, and he took off back towards the city—probably towards his meeting with Hanako Arasaka, and his fate. Johnny’s fate. Kerry’s fate.

All he could do was slump into the seat and cling to Johnny’s guitar, offering a prayer to any and all gods that might be listening that there was some way out of this that didn’t involve loss.


End file.
